The Twilight Hour
by j'ecrive.en.anglais
Summary: Fans can do any number of things because of the object of their obsession, but in Cardiff, people are crossing a line, and Torchwood has to find out the cause. Jack/Ianto
1. Chapter 1

Captain Jack Harkness surveyed his team from a bird's eye view. They often forgot that he could see how hard (or not) they were working just by looking out the window of his office. Owen, for example. The way Owen's fingers were flying over the keyboard, you would think that he was fully absorbed in the autopsy he was documenting. But Jack could see Owen's computer screen quite clearly from his vantage point, and the videos playing on Owen's computer screen had nothing to do with autopsies, although they would give him a bit of a brush up on his knowledge of anatomy. Normally, Jack would wait a few minutes, then tell Owen to get back to work. Either that, or watch his computer screen on the infinitely larger computer in Jack's own office. Which route he chose depended on how long Ianto had been hiding away in the archives. Jack had his needs, after all.

Today, though, he just let Owen have his fun. The rift had been fairly quiet in the past week, and besides catching a couple weevils, the team hadn't had much cause to leave the hub. Not leaving the hub meant nobody getting hurt, so they didn't have much work for their medic. Jack knew it was getting bad when Gwen cut her arm, and Owen was practically salivating at the chance to fix someone. No, Jack would leave Owen alone.

Gwen was at home, supposedly because her arm hurt too much for her to be of any use on missions. She hadn't told Jack that Rhys had gotten some time off work so that they could 'spend time together', but Torchwood wasn't the best place to keep secrets, especially from Jack. Still, he let her go. She needed some time to catch up with her neglected boyfriend. Rhys was dealing with her prolonged absence better than Jack ever could, but the pair needed some face time.

Tosh was working, of course. A misshapen, metal object had come through the rift a few days ago, and she wouldn't rest until she found out what it was. Jack personally thought that it was just a banged up blender, much like the one that had been (will be?) in his childhood home. But he wasn't about to spoil her fun. He knew that she would only get restless when her task was finished, and one more restless Torchwood employee was the last thing they needed.

And what about the last member of staff? Jack let his gaze sweep over the whole Hub, but Ianto was nowhere in sight. He must be in the Archives, doing whatever it was that he did down there. Jack wished that Ianto wasn't quite so good at keeping busy. He could've used a fresh cup of coffee. And the view wasn't half as nice without Ianto's well-tailored suits to catch his eye. Jack turned around, and almost had a heart attack. Ianto was standing a polite distance behind him, holding a cup of coffee.

"Damn it, Ianto, don't do that! I don't need an adrenaline rush at this time of the morning. How do you do that? I didn't hear you come in!" Ianto smiled, and held out the coffee.

"I made you some coffee, sir." He said. Jack gave Ianto a searching look, but he couldn't decipher his expression. He reached out, and took the coffee. He didn't break eye contact with Ianto as he brought the cup to his lips. It was perfectly made, as always. If Ianto's only job was making coffee, it would still be worth it to keep him on payroll. Jack walked around Ianto to get to his desk, making sure to brush up against him as he passed. Ianto raised his eyebrows, but Jack just smirked. He flopped down in the seat he privately called his 'Commander Chair', and took another drink of his coffee.

"This coffee is amazing. Now I see why I keep you around. That, and of course those flattering suits you wear." Ianto rolled his eyes, and sat down in one of Jack's visitor chairs.

"Of course, that's the only reason I'm employed. Not because I'm the only one who can find anything in the Archives."

"What are you doing out of the Archives, anyways? I thought I wouldn't see your face until late afternoon, at least. Not that I'm complaining, of course."Jack leered at the other man, but Ianto grimaced.

"I've re-alphabetized the Archives five times in the past week. There is literally nothing more I can do right now. I was on my way to the tourist center to Google funny pictures of cats, when I thought you might want a coffee. We're all going stir-crazy, Jack. The rift is never this quiet. It's driving me mad." Indeed, Ianto looked a bit fidgety. Which, for him, was the equivalent of pacing in circles and shouting curses.

"I know it's bad, but this is just how it goes. Look, since you're here, I can think of some much pleasanter ways to kill time than sitting up in the tourist centre. You game?" Ianto looked at him disapprovingly.

"Jack, it's ten in the morning. And Owen and Tosh are right. Over. There." He gestured out at the Hub. Jack looked through his window, but he couldn't see the other Torchwood workstations from his seat.

"Come on, Ianto. They can't see us from here. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"It's off hiding with your sense of decency, Jack." Jack didn't respond, but he reached over the table and grabbed Ianto's tie. Ianto looked amused, but he didn't resist when Jack pulled him across the table for a kiss. When their lips were about to touch, they both heard loud footsteps pounding up the stairs. Ianto abruptly pulled away just as Owen came bursting through the door. He took in Ianto's red face, and Jack's hand still on Ianto's tie, and put his hand over his eyes.

"Christ almighty, can't you go a whole work day without shagging the teaboy?"

Jack grinned as Ianto turned a yet darker shade of red. "What do you want? If it's not important, I suggest you bugger off." Owen grabbed the door and hauled it open.

"Believe me, there's nothing I'd rather do. But Tosh says she has something she wants us all to see." He slipped back through the door and slammed it with a bang behind him. Jack and Ianto turned to look at one another.

"Care to pick up where we left off?" Jack asked. Ianto shot him a look.

"When there's a possible crisis? I think your libido can wait, sir." They stood there, staring at each other. At least a minute had passed before Ianto said, "Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Could you let go of my tie?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm not sure why you're showing us this, Tosh."

Her computer was displaying the police blotter from four days ago. Specifically, it was showing a homicide. The murderer was a fifteen year old girl who looked like a caricature of a troubled teen, complete with an outfit that looked like it had come from Hot Topic and a hardware store. The victim was her best friend, who was so pale Jack wondered if she could come out in the day light. She looked much the same in death has in life, save the large dent in her skull caused by an airborne chair.

"How the hell did she do that? She doesn't even come up to my armpits!" Owen said, craning around Tosh for a better view of the screen.

"Adrenaline rush?" Ianto suggested, with a half-glance at Jack. "If she thought she was being attacked?"

"Attacked, by her best friend? Not likely." Owen scoffed.

"That's what her friend must have thought." Said Tosh. "And look where it got her."

"Death by furniture." Ianto said, nodding.

"Yeah, that's all well and good, but why do I care?" Jack said irritably. He wished Owen hadn't interrupted him back in his office. "Torchwood doesn't go out of its way to help the local police. And this is old news, anyhow."

"Right, that's what you would think. Sure, it's odd, but nothing we care about. Which is why I didn't notice it until today."

"Didn't notice what?" Owen interrupted.

"Well, it's not an ordinary crime, is it? Just an ordinary person, no history of violence whatsoever, and she up and kills someone? Her best friend, no less?"

"Surely no matter how unlikely it is, it's going to happen sometime." Ianto pointed out.

"Yeah!" Owen said, although he was a bit reluctant to agree with Ianto. "Tosh, I-"

"Look!" she interrupted. She pressed a few buttons, and pulled up a map of Cardiff on her screen. There was a red dot a few minutes away from the Millennium Centre. "This is where that girl was murdered. Now, if you take all similar crimes in the past three days, and plot them on this map, this is what you get."

For once, the men of Torchwood didn't have any clever quips. They all took in the sea of dots partially obscuring the map before them. Owen's mouth hung open. Jack tried to count them in his head, but he stopped when he hit thirty or so.

"And that's not all." Tosh said grimly. "Look at what happens when I superimpose the rift over this image." She did so, and it was clear to all of them that the dots were densest along the Rift, spreading out until they had completely dispersed three or four kilometers away.

"Bloody hell." Owen whispered.

"You said it." Jack agreed.

"These crimes were committed mostly by women aged eleven to forty, though there were a few men and a few elderly women." Tosh added. "There weren't any other links between the cases, as far as I could see."

Ianto was still staring at the screen. It was now flashing information about all the different crimes that had been plotted on Tosh's map. It was showing a grainy video of two old people in the home a couple blocks away. The man in the wheelchair appeared to say something to an old woman sitting beside him, who promptly dropped the book she had been reading, stood up, and grabbed his wheelchair. Ianto leaned closer to see what he was going to do. To his horror, she wheeled his chair over to the set of stairs in the background, and pushed him down them. He saw several other people run into the frame, and then the scene was covered by the photo of another victim, a man in his mid twenties who looked rather a lot like Jack. A bit shaken, Ianto turned from the screen to rejoin the conversation.

"So Tosh, you and Ianto can interview this girl." Jack was saying. "I'll call Gwen in, she's had more than enough vacation. Then I can go through these files and look for connections. Owen can monitor the Rift, make sure nothing else comes up while we're dealing with this." Ianto and Tosh nodded their assent, but Owen looked mutinous.

"Why do I have to stay here and pretend to work, while those two get to go outside? I've been cooped up in this damned building for too long. I want to go! You can't have those two giving the good cop bad cop routine, they'd be rubbish at it."

Jack folded his arms, and glared at Owen. "Don't second guess me, Owen." Jack said warningly. Owen clearly wanted to argue, but something in Jack's expression stopped him. He stalked off, muttering under his breath about 'shagging', and 'preferential treatment'.

"You have your phones. Use them." Jack said to Ianto and Tosh, who looked as though they were waiting for him to say something. Then he turned and swept back up the stairs to his office. He permitted himself to watch Ianto packing up to leave, but when door rolled shut behind the pair of them, he returned to his desk. He wasted a few seconds imagining what would have happened had Owen not interrupted them a few minutes before, then he sighed, and reached for his phone.

"Gwen? This is Jack. Something's come up…"

Down below, Owen was fuming. In his opinion, Ianto wasn't even a proper member of the team. He'd only been promoted because his precious Jack had buggered off to god knows where. He only got sent on missions because him and Jack were shagging, Owen was sure of it. He didn't have any special skills to deserve it, that's for sure. To Owen, Ianto would always be just a teaboy.

Well, if he wasn't allowed out of the Hub, he'd be damned if he was going to do any work. He sat down at his computer, only to remember he had told it to download some 'work-related' videos off the net. The loading bar at the bottom was only at 2%, so he guessed his computer was going to be out of commission for the better part of an hour. He groaned, and let his head sink to the desk. His computer let out a beep of protest. Great. Now he was taking abuse from the technology.

He wondered if he could get away with using Tosh's computer, but she'd already logged out. It wasn't worth it, anyways. If she found out, she would kill him, and then resurrect him just so she could kill him again. For someone who was normally so quiet, she got really protective of her electronics. He sighed, and got up.

He'd planned to go up to the tourist centre, and use the computer there, when he noticed a book sitting on the rift manipulator. He picked it up. It must've been one of Gwens, as nobody else really brought reading materiel with them. Normally, reading books wasn't his favourite pastime, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, there was something about this particular book that made him really want to read it. He sat down in a secluded corner of the autopsy bay, and he started to read.


End file.
